Workmen's advocate., 1887-04-16
CLASS TRICKSTERS
THE WORKERS AND STRIKERS
 OF SOCIETY.
The Class Dodge Damnation Hurled at Those Who Revolt The Bees Kill or the Dr0nes- Busy
 Shirkers and Fun.
 kips Must Go.

Society is divided into two sec tions, and into two sections only the workers and the shirkers. The for mer by manual labor or as brain workers provide all things needful to mans physical and intellectual well-being. The latter is a useless class, and, useless frivolity and vice can be said to adorn society, its eXis
 tence cannot be excused on the ground that it is ornamental, though that they are the sole adornment of society is the idea firmly implanted in the minds of the shirkers. Strange to say, the shirkers are the minority, and it is marvellous that they are able to sponge on the majority for free board and lodgings, and to get them, too, not with scorn and con- tempt, but with the servile adula- tion and respect of the workers. Books have been. written "in praise of folly' and Gin praise of drunk eness." It has not been necessary to write book in praise of cunning, for on every lip is praise of that su
 preme cunning which enables one man to live upon the labor of an other. Yet it will not be amiss to unmask the cunning now it has got the length that the shirkers are not satisfied to remain idle themselves but enforce the workers to idleness when they cannot toll to their profit. The workers are homeless, but must not build houses for themselves: they are ragged, but must not weave for themselves; they are hungry, but must not win from the soil food for themselves and for their children.
 How is it done? The three card trick, the confidence dodge, all the ruses by which the black-leg gets a livelihood are but shallow artitices compared with the fraud upon the workers constantly practiced by the shirkers. Force, of course, is an element in the matter, but the force is concealed as much as possible for fear the majority may take lesson from the minority, and by organiza- tion meet force with force. This is the lesson the workers have to learn, which happily they are learning, so we will content ourselves with ex- amining the fraud upon which the system is based. Let us look at the
 hocus-poeus of the thing. The "class" dodge is the. one which has most successfully deluded the work CTS. The result of generations of good living and of abstinence from toll is that the shirkers have deli cate limbs and shapely bodies, while excessive toll and hard living has scared the features of the workers or made them uncouth of figure. The workers have been defrauded of their share in the common inheritance, knowledge; schools and universities founded for the people have been seized upon by the shirkers with the result that the minds, like the per sons. of their sons and daughters have been adorned, while the work CTS have remained unlettered, or re- ceived only enough education to make them docile servants. Hay ing in this way artifcially created class, the shirkers point to the per lection, or what passes for It, of their own minds and persons and to the mental and physical grossness of the workers as proof that these are pre-ordained hewers of wood, drawers of water, servltors to their class, and they blasphemously as cribe to the Deity these social inc qualities, asserting that he has mag nified the rich and set down the poor. Repeating the lie, the hire- lings of the pulpit hurl damn ation at any who shall dare revolt against the tyranny of the classes which they bless with text. Grave lawyers, learned doctors, too, support the